John Michael BERRY

ArmsOr a cross moline between four roundels azure a chief ermine all within a bordure gyrony of sixteen sable and gules

CrestA raven sable beaked and legged gules in the beak a roundel azure around the neck a lanyard of chain Or leading and attaching itself to a cross moline azure supported by the dexter claws

MottoPRORSUS SURSUMQUE (onwards and upwards)

The cross moline and the four hurts allude to the armiger’s Berry and Molyneux Lancashire forebears, while the Azure and Or are the colours of St Bede’s College, Manchester where he was educated, and taught for a third of a century. The Bordure alludes to Ampleforth Abbey of which he is an oblate — black for Benedictines and red for the community’s canonised martyr, St Alban Roe.
The chief, required for difference, is in part a tribute to Robert Noel, Lancaster Herald, whose expertise, enthusiasm, wit and humour, made the process leading to the grant such a pleasure. The raven on the crest is the principle of life in Inuit culture, while in Western culture it is an emblem of St Benedict, patron saint of Europe; in Norse mythology it is an emblem of thought and memory. The inclusion of the bee in the badge recalls St Bede’s College shield, the crest of the City of Manchester, where Mr Berry worked, charges on the shield of the City of Salford where he lives, and aspects of the heraldic emblem of the Diocese of Salford. It also cantingly invokes the initial of his surname.